VARUN MITTAL

Varun Mittal is a fintech and digital innovation leader with deep expertise in building, scaling, and transforming financial services across Southeast Asia. He has led multiple high-growth ventures from inception to exit — including Singlife (acquired by Sumitomo Life) and helloPay (acquired by Ant Financial/Alipay) — creating sustainable enterprise value at the intersection of technology, finance, and ecosystems.

As Chief Digital & Innovation Officer at Singlife, Varun drives new product and distribution innovation, ecosystem partnerships, and emerging technology initiatives, including establishing the company’s AI Centre of Excellence. Under his leadership, Singlife achieved the highest market share in Singapore’s digital life insurance segment (2022), launched two InsurTech accelerator cohorts, and executed four embedded-finance partnerships.

Previously, as Partner and Global Emerging Markets FinTech Leader at EY, he built and led fintech and digital-banking practices across 130 countries, supporting financial institutions, regulators, and private equity investors. He advised on digital strategy, licensing, and M&A for leading banks and fintechs, overseeing over $4B in transaction value and 70+ scale-up partnerships across ASEAN.

Earlier in his career, he led ASEAN payments for Samsung and developed regional mobile-payment solutions at Singtel, following his role as first marketing and sales hire at helloPay, where he scaled the business to 20M+ users, $1.5B GMV, and a 154-member team across six countries within a year — culminating in its acquisition by Ant Financial.

Beyond corporate leadership, Varun is deeply involved in ecosystem development. He is the Founder of Fintech Nation™, a platform encompassing a book series, a mentorship initiative (Fintech 65™), an investment vehicle (Fintech Nation Fund / Boleh Ventures™), and a public-policy think tank (Singanomics™) advancing Singapore’s economic model. His investment portfolio spans 25+ fintech and digital-economy companies, with successful exits including Bento, TenX, Numberz, Jumper, PolicyPal, and Finaro.

A two-time bestselling author on Singapore’s fintech evolution, Varun has been recognized twice by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as one of the Top 10 FinTech Leaders (2019, 2021) and serves as Co-Founder of the Singapore FinTech Association, the country’s official fintech trade body representing 800+ corporate members across 40+ global partnerships.